


Boredom

by eternal_teapot



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 08:11:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2461082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternal_teapot/pseuds/eternal_teapot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Series 1 oneshot centered on John's first conversation with Mycroft.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boredom

It amuses him (sometimes) that people assume Sherlock is the one who can't stand to be bored. They look at his flapping coat, the way he swans in and out of crime scenes at high speed, the way he fidgets with his mobile, and they see a man who can't bear to keep still. Then they look at John (he knows it) and see the man who waits patiently for him to finish, a man who is not afraid to raise his voice or leap into the fray, but one who--when all is said and done--looks just as at home in his jumpers with his tea and his crap telly as he does inside the crime scene tape. More so, in fact. They must see a man who would wait _forever_ for Sherlock Holmes.

But John remembers other days. Waking to sweat-soaked sheets, his limbs still struggling against phantom forms, tangled in a mess of blankets. Sitting bolt upright only to find that it is not gone 2 AM and the night may as well last forever. So he had waited...sitting up, back straight, staring at the wall. Waited for the sun to come up, for people time to begin, when he could reasonably get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, go keep his appointment with Ella. Do all the Real John things he was supposed to do--the monotonous after Afghanistan things that were so much like the before Afghanistan things that he can't stand the thought of them. _Dull._ Vapid. But the bustling around during the day, faking this other Real John had still been better than the grinding waiting. Because when he waited he had far too much time to think. Too much time to sit there, staring at his empty blog and echoing, _Nothing ever happens to me. Nothing_ will _ever happen to me again, and this is pointless. Pointless..._

And sometimes he still thinks about the seductive glimpses of his Browning, as it waits for him in the drawer with the promise of one smooth motion followed by a full stop. He sometimes remembers Mike Stamford on a bench, and "I'm not the John Watson you knew." The John Watson you knew didn't even realize how fucking _dull_ he was. But that meeting on the bench was something, a beginning. And then there was this madman who'd left his riding crop (what?) in the mortuary, and that was another possible _something_. 

And as he gazes across the room at Mycroft saying "Hellish, I'd imagine," he basks gratefully in the sensation of _full, full, full._

"I'm never bored."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm cleaning and backing up some _very_ old fills in the hopes of getting back some writing momentum. Original prompt at [the Sherlock BBC Kink Meme.](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/13188.html?thread=70883204#t70883204)


End file.
